Reporters started swarming when I was fifty feet from the parking lot entrance. Wes, standing off to the side, was smart enough and experienced enough to know that the more aggressive the approach, the less likely it would be to work with me. I recognized Bertie, the network TV reporter who’d been chatting with her earlier, an on-air reporter from the Manchester TV station, and a journalist from a Boston paper. The others were all strangers to me.
I slowed to a crawl but didn’t stop, and as I drove, I kept my eyes on the road, not them. The police officer I thought was named Daryl stepped into the traffic lane and said something to them, scanning the crowd as he spoke. The horde parted, and I drove through. Ellis was nowhere in sight. Ian was, though. He was leaning against my front door with his arms crossed watching the action. I parked by the front door and stepped out of my car amid the jumbled roar of reporters’ questions.
“Hi, Ian,” I called, ignoring them.
“They’re really something, aren’t they?”
“That’s one way of putting it,” I said. I unlocked the door, deactivated the alarm, and invited him in. I glanced at Gretchen’s clock. It was eight fifty-five. “I’ll get some coffee started. In the meantime, what can I do for you?”
“Have you seen this morning’s Seacoast Star?”
“Just the online version. Why?”
“Wes Smith’s article said the dolls might be connected to Alice’s murder. What do you know about that?”
I shrugged and poured water into the coffeepot, glad for an excuse to keep my eyes away from his icy glare. “Nothing,” I said.
“You must know something, Josie. You sold them to Alice Michaels.”
“No, I didn’t,” I said, switching on the machine. “She left a deposit giving her the right of first refusal.”
He snorted. “Another fine entry in the unholy history book recounting tales of feckless leaders avoiding responsibility.”
I met his eyes and pulled my shoulders toward one another, arching my back, trying to ease the sudden stab of tension.
“If you’re making a point,” I said, letting my tone match his, “I don’t get it. If you’re accusing me of something, or just being rude for fun, get out.”
“Oh, no, not so quick. I’m making a point, all right. No disrespect, Josie, but since Alice’s schemes have begun to unravel, I’ve learned a lot about how she did business. Deals wrapped around other deals until you don’t know and can’t find out who owns anything. Just because a deal hasn’t been completed doesn’t mean it didn’t get made.”
“First, I didn’t sell the dolls to Alice. Second, Alice died before her check was deposited, which means no transaction of any kind occurred.”
He took in a deep breath, and I could tell he was trying to control himself, to sound rational, not enraged, to speak, not rant. “Maybe. Maybe not. I’m no lawyer, and I’m not saying you’re trying to pull a fast one, but the fact remains that all of Alice’s assets are up for scrutiny. She stole over a million dollars from me. A million dollars, Josie. Those dolls need to be included in the list of her possessions.”
“I’m sorry you lost money,” I said, not knowing what else to say, “but Alice didn’t buy the Farmington dolls from me.”
“Yeah, you’ve said that. A couple of times. You can say it until you’re blue in the face, and it won’t make it true. I’m not taking my losses lying down. This is not a popularity contest. Those dolls need to be turned over to the district attorney, independently appraised, and sold to benefit Alice’s victims, me included. If you want to do the right thing, which I gather you don’t, that’s exactly what you’ll do. If you want to get square, let me take them now. I’ll see they get to the attorney general.”
I couldn’t imagine that he actually expected me to turn the doll collection over to him, yet he sounded serious. I knew he wasn’t stupid, but he sure was acting dumb. He stared at me with his hands on his hips, his gaze icecap frigid, probably hoping to intimidate me. He didn’t know me well enough to know that I don’t intimidate. I just get mad.
“Last time, Ian. I never sold the dolls to Alice. If there’s nothing else, I think you ought to leave.”
“That’s your story and you’re sticking to it,” he said, sneering.
“If you’re trying to be offensive, you’re succeeding. Go. Now.”
He raised his chin. “If the shoe fits…”
The chimes jingled. Gretchen smiled brightly as she stepped inside.
“Wow!” Gretchen said. “That’s quite a gauntlet! I had trouble getting past the…”
The words petered out and her smile faded as she realized that some kind of altercation was under way. She looked at Ian, then back at me.
Ian’s sneer deepened. His eyes remained fixed on mine. “Maybe I’ll talk to some of those reporters and tell them what you said.”
“Feel free,” I snapped. “Just make sure you get it right. Otherwise you’ll be defending yourself against a charge of slander. Now that Gretchen’s here, I have a witness to your threat and my statement. Here’s what you can quote: I never sold Alice Michaels the Farmington dolls. Period.” I strode to the door and pushed it open, holding it ajar. “For the last time—leave.”
He held my gaze for three seconds, then marched out.
“Holy cow!” Gretchen said, her eyes big, watching him stomp to his car. “What was that about?”
“I’m not sure.” I rubbed my arms. “To tell you the truth, he was a little scary.”
“What did he want?”
Good question, I thought. I ran through our conversation. If I eliminated all the fancy trimmings, what it came down to was simple.
“He wanted the doll collection,” I said.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Ten minutes later, as I placed the Belton & Jumeau Bébé on the worktable that ran along the back wall, Cara’s voice crackled over the PA system. A woman named Dawn LeBlanc wondered if I had a few minutes to talk about a birthday gift for her mom. I hoped Dawn was Ellis’s police officer come to install the GPS devices, but I doubted it. I knew most of the police officers on the Rocky Point force by name from when Ty had been the police chief, and I didn’t recognize hers.
“I’ll be right there,” I said over the intercom.
“Hi,” Dawn LeBlanc said, smiling broadly and extending her hand for a shake as soon as I stepped into the font office. “Ellis suggested I stop by. He told me he was certain you’d be able to help me find the perfect birthday gift for my mom. I love her to death, but she sure is hard to buy for!”
Dawn was one heck of an actress. She was short and stocky, with shaggy brown hair, dark brown eyes, and a sprinkling of freckles on her cheeks and nose. She wore low-rise blue jeans and a leather jacket open to show a pink and turquoise plaid T-shirt. She looked more like a college student than a cop. Her smile was big, and her eyes twinkled with fun. I had to keep reminding myself to act as if her words were true.
“Welcome! We’ll find something she’ll love. Follow me.”
I led the way into the warehouse. Fifteen paces in, I stopped walking. “You said Ellis sent you?”
She took a look around. “Are we alone?” she whispered.
“Yes. Everyone else is in the front.”
She extracted a brown leather card holder from an inside pocket and flipped it open to display her badge. She was a detective with the Portsmouth Police Department.
“Portsmouth?”
“Rocky Point has a fairly small department. Just in case the bad guys are watching and might know Rocky Point’s personnel, Chief Hunter thought it was prudent to use someone from another department. I’m on temporary duty, assigned to Rocky Point.” She touched her hair. “It’s a wig. Even my husband wouldn’t recognize me.”
“Smart,” I said, smiling. “I appreciate your help.” I turned down the center aisle toward the worktable. “The dolls are over here. So how does this work?”
“The first thing I have to do is figure out the best way to insert the GPS t
racking disks in the dolls. The disks are small, but looking at these dolls, I’m reminded that ‘small’ is a relative term.” She reached into a side pocket and came out with a plastic bag filled about halfway with shiny silver metal disks, each about the size of my thumbnail.
“With so many devices, how can you keep track?”
“Each one has a unique ID number. I note which device is placed where.”
I nodded. “That part’s all right, but look at them—I don’t see how this can possibly work. They’re too big. Too conspicuous. Let’s say the kidnapper refuses to turn over Eric until he examines all the dolls. Last time he had a bunch of dolls, he stomped them to smithereens. If he does that this time around, he’ll either destroy the GPS devices or he’ll discover them. If he discovers them, he’ll be so pissed off, he’ll probably kill Eric out of spite. If he destroys them, we risked Eric’s life for no reason.”
Dawn scanned the row of dolls and reached for one, the kachina, then paused and asked, “May I touch it?”
“Yes. Just be gentle.”
She picked it up and turned it over, then upside down, then placed it back on the table.
“I understand your point, but I think you’re looking at it backward. If we don’t install them, it would be like sending you into a hornet’s nest without a face mask. It’s not if you’ll get stung, it’s how many times, and how severe the damage will be. We have to know where you are. With all respect, we have to assume that you’re going to need backup. Without these devices, you’ll be on your own.”
“You’ll know where I am. We’re putting those things, or something like them, in my car.”
“We have to know where the dolls are, too.”
“Why?”
She stared at me for a moment. “What if he transfers you and the dolls into another vehicle?”
Prickly shivers ran up my spine, then down again. What she said was terrifying, but what she left out was even scarier. What if he killed me? I shook my head. What the kidnapper might or might not do was out of my control. I needed to focus on what was in my control, on what I could do to rescue Eric, and nothing else.
“How about putting one somewhere it probably won’t be found … I don’t know … how about inside my boot? It’s unlikely the kidnapper would make me run around barefoot.”
“Good idea. We can place another one in your purse. There’s a chance they’ll take it from you, but maybe not. I can’t okay skipping the dolls without permission from the higher-ups, though.”
“I’ll call Ellis,” I said.
“Here,” Dawn said, handing me a cell phone. “Use this. I was asked to give it to you.”
I thanked her and dialed. Ellis answered so quickly, it was as if he’d been waiting for the call. I explained my objection to inserting the GPS devices in the dolls.
When I was done he said, “Interesting,” and asked to speak to Officer LeBlanc.
“Yes,” she said. “No … Yes … Yes … All right.”
She flipped the phone closed and handed it back to me.
“Chief Hunter is okay with our not placing the GPS devices in the dolls, but he wants me to look at the packaging.” She looked around, her eyes moving first to the oversized roll of bubble wrap mounted on the wall, then to the clear plastic tub with the dark green top where the dolls had been stored in the safe, and finally to the dolls themselves.
“How do you plan on transporting them?” she asked.
“Individually wrapped in flannel, then packed in this tub. Last time, the kidnapper destroyed the crate as well as the dolls, so he might do the same with this tub. I think it’s too risky.”
“You’re probably right. Let me take a look at one. Maybe I can find a way to sneak a device in there so it will survive an attack.”
I watched as she studied it. The tub was nothing special. We bought them by the truckload. It was built for strength and durability, not beauty. There was no soft lining. There was no place to secrete a thumbnail-sized metal disk. She removed the lid and looked inside. She shook her head.
“It’s too exposed,” she said, “so that’s a wash.” She looked at my feet. “Let’s take a look at your boots.”
I brought her upstairs and sat on the love seat while she worked. She notated two disks’ numbers, then tore a short length of superstrong clear plastic shipping tape. She secured one disk under the tongue of my right boot. She slid the other one into the toe section of the left boot and affixed the tape.
I put the boots back on, wiggled my toes, and nodded. “This will work. I can barely feel them.”
“Good. What about your purse?”
“I don’t carry a purse. I carry a tote bag.” I stood up. “I’m thinking I can slip one of those bad boys in the zippered compartment and place a second one in my change purse. What do you think?”
“Sounds good.”
She wrote down their numbers while I walked across to my desk for the bag. “Can I leave them loose or do they need to be taped down?”
“Loose is fine,” she said. She handed me the disks. “Here you go.” She watched me drop them into place, then asked, “Will you be wearing a coat?”
“No, probably not. Even though it’s raining, it’s not all that cold out.”
“Do you carry an umbrella?”
“Sometimes I do. Sometimes I just get wet. For this, I’ll probably just get wet.”
The new cell phone buzzed.
“It’s Ellis,” I told Dawn. “He said only to use it in the warehouse. I’ll run downstairs. You come, too, okay? In case he wants to talk to you.”
I hurried down the spiral steps, pushing the ACCEPT CALL button as my foot hit concrete. Dawn was two steps behind me.
“How’s it going?” Ellis asked.
“Good. We’re done.” I described where Dawn had placed the GPS disks and why, then told him that Jamie had called me to ask me why I’d given Wes the information about the dolls.
“Interesting,” he said, which told me nothing about his reaction. He asked for the details of our conversation, then changed the subject. “How are you feeling about things? Any second-guessing your decisions? Any questions?”
“No. I’m okay.”
“If that changes, get in touch. Don’t brood. I just sent you an e-mail about meeting Jamie and Lorna at eleven. You can leave, drop your car off on the way. Let me give you the name of the service station. Do you have a pen?”
I got one at a worktable and jotted the name and number down. I knew the location. It was close to Blackmore’s. I glanced at a wall clock. It was just after ten. He didn’t need to talk to Dawn, so we ended the call.
“So what am I getting my mother for her birthday?” Dawn asked as we walked toward the front office.
“How about a silver soup ladle?”
“How much?”
“Seventy-five dollars, nineteenth century, newly replated.”
“Sounds fair. She’d love it. For real, actually.”
I smiled, a small one. “After this is over, come back and we’ll pick out something really special for her, a thank-you for her daughter’s efforts. For now, it’s the ladle.”
I took it from the shelf as I walked her out and handed it to Gretchen for processing and wrapping.
Dawn thanked me so everyone would hear, and I watched her walk to her car, seemingly impervious to the reporters’ hollered questions.
I turned back to my staff. Cara was typing something into her computer. Gretchen was using an adding machine with her right hand as her left index finger ran down a column of figures. Sasha was just finishing a call. Fred was reading an auction catalogue from my former company, Frisco’s, featuring objects related to magic. We’d learned that in the antiques witchcraft world, the two terms were often used interchangeably.
“What are you all doing here?” I asked, smiling. “I expected you to take the day off.”
“Once we know what we’re dealing with,” Fred said, “you may need help.”
Sasha nodd
ed.
“I couldn’t stay away,” Cara said. “It wouldn’t be right.”
“I keep hoping we’ll hear something,” Gretchen said.
Feeling their eyes on my face, my throat closed, but only for a moment. I wanted to fill them in, to reassure them that they were in the loop, but I couldn’t reveal our plans and I didn’t want to lie. Everything I could do to help find Eric was being done. The campaign was under way. What I needed to do now was act natural.
“I’m as anxious as anyone,” I said, choosing my words carefully. “As soon as I can tell you anything, I will. In the meantime, update me. What are you working on?”
Gretchen told me she was reconciling last week’s tag sale receipts and waiting for the temps to come in to help with this week’s setup; Sasha reported she was working on the doll appraisals; Cara said she was entering names for our mailing list; and Fred said he was reading about a shaman spirit trap similar to the one we planned to include in the witchcraft auction. Our shaman spirit trap was Burmese in origin, carved out of local hardwood, and comprised of two wooden halves. Eighteenth-century shamans, or medicine men, had used the six-inch box to trap and transport supernatural spirits.
“They’re describing it as folk art,” he said. “That’s an interesting take on it.”
“I agree. I like it. Any valuation yet?”
“Yeah. Less than we’d hoped. Probably around a hundred dollars.”
I shrugged. “Oh, well … some collector will be thrilled!”
Without providing details, I told Cara I’d be back in a while and left.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Three reporters tagged along as I drove to the service station, each in a separate vehicle. One of them was Bertie. Wes was nowhere to be seen. I didn’t try to lose them. When I pulled into the station and rolled to a stop at an open bay, they parked in the lot. They followed me inside, squeezing into the small office to watch me fill out the service order.
“Josie,” Bertie said warmly. “How are you doing during this dreadful time?”
“Hi, Tim,” I said, using the name embroidered on the service station employee’s dark green jumpsuit, ignoring her. “I just need an oil change.”
Dolled Up for Murder Page 11
